Female Film Critics 24/375
Considering this installment of the Wizarding World sub-franchise was written by Harry Potter” creator J.K. Rowling and Steve Klovesand and directed by Harry Potter\” veteran David Yates, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is decidedly underwhelming, a dull, Dumble-snore, two-and-a-half hours of murky tedium, making one want to beg the Potterverse to stop making these inferior spin-offs.
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Happily, Warner Brothers and the filmmakers behind Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore have openly flouted ‘Don’t Say Gay’ absurdities with the third installment of the Fantastic Beasts franchise. Right out of the gate, Dumbledore (Jude Law) and Gridelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) talk about the love and devotion they once had for each other. No one is hit over the head with it. It was part of the life they once shared. That’s just one of some very adult, and often understated qualities to appreciate in the new film.
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In the 1980s, one of the Ladies’ Home Journal’s most popular features was “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” drawing from the files of marital therapists and counselors. Following that model, writer/director Sean Durkin introduces hot-shot British commodities broker Rory O’Hara who leaves Wall Street to return to the U.K. with his American wife Allison, an avid equestrian, and two children: young Benjamin and his teenage half-sister Samantha.
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The auteur, who broke out with the acclaimed 2011 psychological drama “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” has recruited two of the best actors working today to roost in “The Nest”: Jude Law (the “Sherlock Holmes” series) and Carrie Coon (“Gone Girl”).
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Director Sean Durkin made Mary Marcy May Marlene in 2011, then lapsed until writing and directing The Nest this year. Both films are opaque, unresolved, mysterious, tense, and unsatisfying. Like MMMM, The Nest pretends to art, so do not expect the film to explain the title. No nest here.
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